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Septimius Severus – Roman Emperor: 193-211 A.D. –
Bronze 17mm (2.31 grams) of Nicopolis ad Istrum in Moesia Inferior 193-211 A.D.
AV KAI CEVHPO, laureate head right.
NIKOΠOΛIT ΠPOC ICT, Demeter
standing left, holding patera and scepter.
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In
ancient Roman religion
, Ceres (
Latin
: Cerēs)
was a goddess
of
agriculture
,
grain crops
, fertility and motherly
relationships. She was originally the central deity in Rome’s so-called
plebeian
or
Aventine Triad
, then was paired with her
daughter Proserpina
in what Romans described as “the
Greek rites of Ceres”. Her seven-day April
festival
of
Cerealia
included the popular
Ludi Ceriales (Ceres’ games). She was also honoured in the May
lustration
of fields at the
Ambarvalia
festival, at harvest-time, and
during
Roman marriages
and
funeral rites
.
Ceres is the only one of Rome’s many
agricultural deities
to be listed among the
Di Consentes
, Rome’s equivalent to the
Twelve Olympians
of Greek mythology. The Romans
saw her as the counterpart of the Greek goddess
Demeter
, whose
mythology
was
reinterpreted
for Ceres in
Roman art
and
literature
.
Etymology and origins
Ceres’ name may derive from the hypothetical
Proto-Indo-European root
*ker, meaning
“to grow”, which is also a possible root for many English words, such as
“create”, “cereal”, “grow”, “kernel”, “corn”, and “increase”. Roman etymologists
thought “ceres” derived from the Latin verb gerere, “to bear, bring
forth, produce”, because the goddess was linked to
pastoral
, agricultural and human fertility.
Archaic cults to Ceres are well-evidenced among Rome’s neighbours in the
Regal period
, including the ancient
Latins
,
Oscans
and
Sabellians
, less certainly among the
Etruscans
and
Umbrians
. An archaic
Faliscan
inscription of c.600 BC asks her to
provide far (spelt
wheat), which was a dietary staple of the
Mediterranean world
. Throughout the Roman era,
Ceres’ name was synonymous with grain and, by extension, with bread.
Cults and cult themes
Agricultural fertility
Ceres was credited with the discovery of
spelt
wheat (Latin far), the yoking of
oxen and ploughing, the sowing, protection and nourishing of the young seed, and
the gift of agriculture to humankind; before this, it was said, man had
subsisted on acorns, and wandered without settlement or laws. She had the power
to fertilise, multiply and fructify plant and animal seed, and her laws and
rites protected all activities of the agricultural cycle. In January, Ceres was
offered spelt wheat and a pregnant sow, along with the earth-goddess
Tellus
at the movable
Feriae
Sementivae
. This was almost certainly held
before the annual sowing of grain. The divine portion of sacrifice was the
entrails (exta)
presented in an earthenware pot (olla).
In a rural context, Cato the Elder describes the offer to Ceres of a porca
praecidanea (a pig, offered before the sowing). Before the harvest, she was
offered a propitiary grain sample (praemetium). Ovid tells that Ceres “is
content with little, provided that her offerings are
casta
” (pure).
Ceres’ main festival,
Cerealia
, was held from mid to late April. It
was organised by her
plebeian
aediles
and included circus games (ludi
circenses). It opened with a horse-race in the
Circus Maximus
, whose starting point lay below
and opposite to her Aventine Temple;[7]
the turning post at the far end of the Circus was sacred to
Consus
, a god of grain-storage. After the race,
foxes were released into the Circus, their tails ablaze with lighted torches,
perhaps to cleanse the growing crops and protect them from disease and vermin,
or to add warmth and vitality to their growth.[8]
From c.175 BC, Cerealia included
ludi scaenici
(theatrical religious
events), held through April 12 to 18.
Helper gods
In the ancient sacrum cereale a priest, probably the
Flamen Cerialis
, invoked Ceres (and probably
Tellus) along with twelve specialised, minor assistant-gods to secure divine
protection and assistance at each stage of the grain cycle, beginning shortly
before the Feriae Sementivae.
W.H. Roscher
lists these deities among the
indigitamenta
, names used to invoke
specific divine functions.
- Vervactor, “He who ploughs”
- Reparator, “He who prepares the earth”
- Imporcitor, “He who ploughs with a wide furrow”
- Insitor, “He who plants seeds”
- Obarator, “He who traces the first plowing”
- Occator, “He who harrows”
- Serritor, “He who digs”
- Subruncinator, “He who weeds”
- Messor, “He who reaps”
- Conuector (Convector), “He who carries the grain”
- Conditor, “He who stores the grain”
- Promitor, “He who distributes the grain”
Marriage, human fertility and nourishment
Several of Ceres’ ancient Italic precursors are connected to human fertility
and motherhood; the Pelignan goddess
Angitia
Cerealis has been identified with
the Roman goddess
Angerona
(associated with childbirth).[13]
Ceres’ torch was a mark of Roman weddings. Adult males were excluded from
bridal processions; these took place at night and were headed by a young boy,
who carried a torch in honour of Ceres.
Pliny the Elder
“notes that the most
auspicious wood
for wedding torches came from
the spina alba, the may tree, which bore many fruits and hence symbolised
fertility”. Once led thus to her husband’s home, the bride was a matron.[14]
Sacrifice was offered to
Tellus
on the bride’s behalf; a sow is the most
likely
victim
. Varro describes the sacrifice of a pig
as “a worthy mark of weddings” because “our women, and especially nurses” call
the female genitalia porcus (pig).
Spaeth
(1996) believes Ceres may have been
included in the sacrificial dedication, because she is closely identified with
Tellus and “bears the laws” of marriage. In the most solemn form of marriage,
confarreatio, the bride and groom shared a cake made of far, the ancient
wheat-type particularly associated with Ceres.
Funerary statue of an unknown woman, depicted as Ceres holding
wheat. Mid 3rd century AD. (Louvre)
From at least the mid-republican era, an official, joint cult to Ceres and
Proserpina reinforced Ceres’ connection with Roman ideals of female virtue. The
promotion of this cult coincides with the rise of a plebeian nobility, an
increased birthrate among plebeian commoners, and a fall in the birthrate among
patrician families. The late Republican Ceres Mater (Mother Ceres) is
described as genetrix (progenitress) and alma (nourishing); in the
early Imperial era she becomes an Imperial deity, and receives joint cult with
Ops
Augusta
, Ceres’ own mother in Imperial guise
and a bountiful genetrix in her own right.
Laws
Ceres was patron and protector of
plebeian laws
, rights and
Tribunes
. Her Aventine Temple served the
plebeians as cult centre, legal archive, treasury and possibly law-court; its
foundation was contemporaneous with the passage of the
Lex Sacrata
, which established the office and
person of plebeian aediles and tribunes as inviolate representatives of the
Roman people. Tribunes were legally immune to arrest or threat, and the lives
and property of
those who violated this law
were forfeit to
Ceres. The
Lex Hortensia
of 287 BC extended plebeian laws
to the city and all its citizens. The official decrees of the Senate (senatus
consulta) were placed in Ceres’ Temple, under the guardianship of the
goddess and her aediles. Livy puts the reason bluntly: the consuls could no
longer seek advantage by arbitrarily tampering with the laws of Rome. The Temple
might also have offered asylum for those threatened with arbitrary arrest by
patrician magistrates.[20]
Successful prosecutions of those who offended the laws of Ceres raised fines and
property distraints that funded her temple, games and cult. Ceres was thus the
patron goddess of Rome’s written laws; the poet Vergil later calls her
legifera Ceres (Law-bearing Ceres), a translation of Demeter’s Greek
epithet,
thesmophoros
.
Ceres’ role as protector of laws continued throughout the Republican era. The
killing of the tribune Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC was justified by some as
rightful punishment for attempted tyranny, an offense against Ceres’ Lex
sacrata. Others deplored his killing as murder, because the same “Lex
sacrata” had made his person sacrosanct. In 70 BC,
Cicero
refers to this killing in connection
with Ceres’ laws and cults, during his prosecution of
Verres
, Roman governor of Sicily, for
extortion. The case included circumstantial details of Verres’ irreligious
exploitation and abuse of Sicilian grain farmers, naturally under Ceres’ special
protection at the very place of her “earthly home” – and thefts from her temple,
including an ancient image of the goddess herself. Faced by the mounting
evidence against him, Verres abandoned his own defense and withdrew to a
prosperous exile. Soon after, Cicero won election as
aedile
.
As Ceres’ first plough-furrow opened the earth (Tellus’ realm) to the world
of men and created the first field and its boundary, her laws determined the
course of settled, lawful, civilised life. Crimes against fields and harvest
were crimes against the people and their protective deity. Landowners who
allowed their flocks to graze on public land were fined by the plebeian aediles,
on behalf of Ceres and the people of Rome. Ancient laws of the
Twelve Tables
forbade the magical charming of
field crops from a neighbour’s field into one’s own, and invoked the death
penalty for the illicit removal of field boundaries.[24]
An adult who damaged or stole field-crops should be hanged “for Ceres”. Any
youth guilty of the same offense was to be whipped or fined double the value of
damage.
Ceres protected transitions of women from girlhood to womanhood, from
unmarried to married life and motherhood. She also maintained the boundaries
between the realms of the living and the dead, regardless of their sex. Given
the appropriate rites, she helped the deceased into afterlife as an underworld
shade (Di
Manes), else their spirit might remain to haunt the living, as a
wandering,
vengeful ghost
(Lemur).
For this service, well-off families offered Ceres sacrifice of a pig. The poor
could offer wheat, flowers, and a libation. The expected afterlife for the
exclusively female initiates in the sacra Cereris may have been somewhat
different; they were offered “a method of living” and of “dying with better
hope”.
The mundus of
Ceres
The mundus cerialis (literally “the world” of Ceres) was a
hemispherical pit or underground vault in Rome;
Cato
describes its shape as a reflection or
inversion of the dome of the upper heavens. On most days of the year, it was
sealed by a stone lid known as the
lapis manalis
.[30]
On August 24, October 5 and November 8, it was opened with the official
announcement “mundus patet” (“the mundus is open”), and offerings
were made there to agricultural or underworld deities, including Ceres as
goddess of the fruitful earth and guardian of its underworld portals. While the
mundus was open, the spirits of the dead could lawfully emerge from the
underworld and roam among the living, in what Warde Fowler describes as
‘holidays, so to speak, for the ghosts’. When it was re-sealed, the spirits
returned to the realms of the dead.
The origins and location of the mundus pit are disputed. The days when
the mundus was open are identified in the oldest Roman calendar as
C(omitiales) (days when the
Comitia
met) but by later authors as dies
religiosus
, when it would be irreligious to
perform any official work: this apparent contradiction has led to the suggestion
that the whole mundus ritual was not contemporary with Rome’s early
calendar or early Cerean cult, but was a later Greek import. Nevertheless, the
days when the mundus was open were connected to the official festivals of the
agricultural cycle; the mundus rite of August 24 follows
Consualia
(an agricultural festival) and
precedes Opiconsivia
(another such).
Other than the festivals of
Parentalia
and
Lemuralia
, these rites at the mundus
cerialis on particular dies religiosi are the only known, regular
official contacts with the spirits of the dead, or Di Manes. This may
represent a secondary or late function of the mundus, attested no earlier
than the Late Republican Era, by
Varro
. Warde Fowler speculates that it was
originally Rome’s storehouse (penus) for the best of the harvest, to
provide seed-grain for the next planting, then became the symbolic penus
of the expanded Roman state. In Plutarch, the digging of such a pit to receive
first-fruits and small quantities of native soil was an Etruscan colonial
city-foundation rite.[35]
The rites of the mundus suggest Ceres as guardian deity of seed-corn, an
essential deity in the establishment and agricultural prosperity of cities, and
a door-warden of the underworld’s afterlife, in which her daughter Proserpina
rules as queen-companion to
Pluto
or
Dis
.
Expiations
In Roman theology,
prodigies
were abnormal phenomena that
manifested
divine anger
at human impiety. In Roman
histories, prodigies are clustered around perceived or actual threats to the
equilibrium of the Roman state, in particular, famine, war and social disorder,
and are expiated as matters of urgency. The establishment of Ceres’ Aventine
cult has itself been interpreted as an extraordinary expiation after the failure
of crops and consequent famine. In Livy’s history, Ceres is among the deities
placated after a remarkable series of prodigies that accompanied the disasters
of the
Second Punic War
: during the same conflict, a
lighting strike at her temple was expiated. A fast in her honour is recorded for
191 BC, to be repeated at 5-year intervals. After 206, she was offered at least
11 further official expiations. Many of these were connected to famine and
manifestations of plebeian unrest, rather than war. From the Middle Republic
onwards, expiation was increasingly addressed to her as mother to Proserpina.
The last known followed
Rome’s Great Fire of 64 AD
.[38]
The cause or causes of the fire remained uncertain, but its disastrous extent
was taken as a sign of offense against
Juno
,
Vulcan
, and Ceres-with-Proserpina, who were all
were given expiatory cult. Champlin (2003) perceives the expiations to Vulcan
and Ceres in particular as attempted populist appeals by the ruling emperor,
Nero.
Myths and theology
Ceres with cereals
The complex and multi-layered origins of the Aventine Triad and Ceres herself
allowed multiple interpretations of their relationships; Cicero asserts Ceres as
mother to both Liber and Libera, consistent with her role as a mothering deity.
Varro’s more complex theology groups her functionally with Tellus, Terra, Venus
(and thus Victoria) and with Libera as a female aspect of Liber.[40]
No native Roman myths of Ceres are known. According to
interpretatio romana
, which sought the
equivalence of Roman to Greek deities, she was an equivalent to Demeter, one of
the
Twelve Olympians
of Greek religion and
mythology; this made Ceres one of Rome’s twelve
Di Consentes
, daughter of
Saturn
and
Ops,
sister of
Jupiter
, mother of
Proserpina
by Jupiter and sister of
Juno
,
Vesta
,
Neptune
and
Pluto
. Ceres’ known mythology is
indistinguishable from Demeter’s:
“When Ceres sought through all the earth with lit torches for Proserpina,
who had been seized by Dis Pater, she called her with shouts where three or
four roads meet; from this it has endured in her rites that on certain days
a lamentation is raised at the crossroads everywhere by the matronae.”
Ceres had strong mythological and cult connections with
Sicily
, especially at
Henna (Enna), on whose “miraculous plain” flowers bloomed throughout
the year. This was the place of Proserpina’s rape and abduction to the
underworld and the site of Ceres’ most ancient Sanctuary.[42]
According to legend, she begged Jupiter that Sicily be placed in the heavens.
The result, because the island is triangular in shape, was the constellation
Triangulum
, an early name of which was
Sicilia.[citation
needed]
Temples
Vitruvius
(c.80 – 15 BC) describes the “Temple
of Ceres near the Circus Maximus” (her Aventine Temple) as typically
Araeostyle
, having widely spaced supporting
columns, with
architraves
of wood, rather than stone. This
species of temple is “clumsy, heavy roofed, low and wide, [its]
pediments
ornamented with statues of clay or
brass, gilt in the
Tuscan fashion
“. He recommends that temples to
Ceres be sited in rural areas: “in a solitary spot out of the city, to which the
public are not necessarily led but for the purpose of sacrificing to her. This
spot is to be reverenced with religious awe and solemnity of demeanour, by those
whose affairs lead them to visit it.” During the early Imperial era, soothsayers
advised
Pliny the Younger
to restore an ancient, “old
and narrow” temple to Ceres, at his rural property near
Como. It contained an ancient wooden cult statue of the goddess,
which he replaced. Though this was unofficial, private cult (sacra privata)
its annual feast on the
Ides
of September, the same day as the
Epulum Jovis
, was attended by pilgrims from all
over the region. Pliny considered this rebuilding a fulfillment of his civic and
religious duty.
Images of Ceres
Denarius
picturing Quirinus on the
obverse
, and Ceres enthroned on the
reverse, a commemoration by a moneyer in 56 BC of a Cerialia,
perhaps her first
ludi
, presented by an earlier
Gaius Memmius
as
aedile
No images of Ceres survive from her pre-Aventine cults; the earliest date to
the middle Republic, and show the Hellenising influence of Demeter’s
iconography. Some late Republican images recall Ceres’ search for Proserpina.
Ceres bears a torch, sometimes two, and rides in a chariot drawn by snakes; or
she sits on the sacred kiste (chest) that conceals the objects of her
mystery rites. Augustan reliefs show her emergence, plant-like from the earth,
her arms entwined by snakes, her outstretched hands bearing poppies and wheat,
or her head crowned with fruits and vines. In free-standing statuary, she
commonly wears a wheat-crown, or holds a wheat spray.
Moneyers of the Republican era
use Ceres’
image, wheat ears and garlands to advertise their connections with prosperity,
the annona and the popular interest. Some Imperial coin images depict important
female members of the Imperial family as Ceres, or with some of her attributes.
Priesthoods
Ceres was served by several public priesthoods. Some were male; her senior
priest, the flamen cerialis, also served Tellus and was usually plebeian
by ancestry or adoption. Her public cult at the
Ambarvalia
, or “perambulation of fields”
identified her with
Dea Dia
, and was led by the
Arval Brethren
(“The Brothers of the Fields”);
rural versions of these rites were led as private cult by the
heads of households
. An inscription at
Capua
names a male sacerdos Cerialis
mundalis, a priest dedicated to Ceres’ rites of the mundus. The
plebeian aediles
had minor or occasional
priestly functions at Ceres’ Aventine Temple and were responsible for its
management and financial affairs including collection of fines, the organisation
of ludi Cerealia and probably the Cerealia itself. Their cure
(care and jurisdiction) included, or came to include, the
grain supply
(annona) and later the
plebeian grain doles (frumentationes), the organisation and management of
public games
in general, and the maintenance of Rome’s
streets and public buildings.
Otherwise, in Rome and throughout Italy, as at her ancient sanctuaries of
Henna and Catena, Ceres’
ritus graecus
and her joint cult with
Proserpina were invariably led by female sacerdotes, drawn from women of
local and Roman elites: Cicero notes that once the new cult had been founded,
its earliest priestesses “generally were either from Naples or Velia”, cities
allied or federated to Rome. Elsewhere, he describes Ceres’ Sicilian priestesses
as “older women respected for their noble birth and character”. Celibacy may
have been a condition of their office; sexual abstinence was, according to Ovid,
required of those attending Ceres’ major, nine-day festival. Her public
priesthood was reserved to respectable matrons, be they married, divorced or
widowed. The process of their selection and their relationship to Ceres’ older,
entirely male priesthood is unknown; but they far outnumbered her few male
priests, and would have been highly respected and influential figures in their
own communities.
Cult development
Archaic and Regal eras
Roman tradition credited Ceres’ eponymous festival,
Cerealia
, to Rome’s second king, the
semi-legendary
Numa
. Ceres’ senior, male priesthood was a
minor flaminate
whose priesthood and rites were
supposedly also innovations of Numa.[59]
Her affinity and joint cult with Tellus, also known as
Terra Mater
(Mother Earth) may have developed
at this time. Much later, during the
early Imperial era
,
Ovid describes these goddesses as “partners in labour”; Ceres
provides the “cause” for the growth of crops, while Tellus provides them a place
to grow.
Republican era
Ceres and the
Aventine Triad
In 496 BC, against a background of economic recession and famine in Rome,
imminent war against the Latins and a threatened secession by Rome’s
plebs
(citizen commoners), the
dictator
A. Postumius
vowed
a temple to Ceres,
Liber
and
Libera
on or near the
Aventine Hill
. The famine ended and Rome’s
plebeian citizen-soldiery co-operated in the conquest of the Latins. Postumius’
vow was fulfilled in 493 BC: Ceres became the central deity of the new
Triad
, housed in a
new-built Aventine temple
. She was also – or
became – the patron goddess of the
plebs
, whose enterprise as tenant farmers,
estate managers, agricultural factors and importers was a mainstay of Roman
agriculture.
Much of Rome’s grain was imported from territories of
Magna Graecia
, particularly from
Sicily
, which later Roman
mythographers
describe as Ceres’ “earthly
home”. Writers of the
late Roman Republic
and early Empire describe
Ceres’ Aventine temple and rites as conspicuously Greek.[62]
In modern scholarship, this is taken as further evidence of long-standing
connections between the plebeians, Ceres and Magna Graecia. It also raises
unanswered questions on the nature, history and character of these associations:
the Triad itself may have been a self-consciously Roman cult formulation based
on Greco-Italic precedents. To complicate matters further, when a new form of
Cerean cult was officially imported from Magna Graecia, it was known as the
ritus graecus
(Greek rite) of Ceres, and
was distinct from her older Roman rites.
The older forms of Aventine rites to Ceres remain uncertain. Most Roman cults
were led by men, and the officiant’s head was
covered
by a fold of his toga. In the Roman
ritus graecus, a male celebrant wore Greek-style vestments, and remained
bareheaded before the deity, or else wore a wreath. While Ceres’ original
Aventine cult was led by male priests, her “Greek rites” (ritus graecus
Cereris) were exclusively female.
Middle Republic
Ceres and Proserpina
Towards the end of the
Second Punic War
, around 205 BC, an officially
recognised joint cult to Ceres and her daughter
Proserpina
was brought to Rome from southern
Italy (part of
Magna Graecia
) along with Greek priestesses to
serve it.[65]
In Rome, this was known as the ritus graecus Cereris; its priestesses
were granted
Roman citizenship
so that they could pray to
the gods “with a foreign and external knowledge, but with a domestic and civil
intention”. The cult was based on ancient, ethnically Greek cults to Demeter,
most notably the
Thesmophoria
to
Demeter
and
Persephone
, whose cults and myths also provided
a basis for the
Eleusinian mysteries
.
From the end of the 3rd century BC, Demeter’s temple at
Enna, in Sicily
, was acknowledged as Ceres’ oldest, most
authoritative cult centre, and Libera was recognised as Proserpina, Roman
equivalent to Demeter’s daughter
Persephone
.[66]
Their joint cult recalls Demeter’s search for Persephone, after the latter’s
rape and abduction into the underworld by
Hades
. The new cult to “mother and maiden” took
its place alongside the old, but made no reference to Liber. Thereafter, Ceres
was offered two separate and distinctive forms of official cult at the Aventine.
Both might have been supervised by the male
flamen Cerialis
but otherwise, their
relationship is unclear. The older form of cult included both men and women, and
probably remained a focus for plebeian political identity and discontent. The
new identified its exclusively females initiates and priestesses as upholders of
Rome’s traditional,
patrician
-dominated social hierarchy and
mores
.
Ceres and Magna Mater
A year after the import of the ritus cereris, patrician senators
imported cult to the Greek goddess
Cybele
and established her as
Magna Mater
(The Great Mother) within Rome’s
sacred boundary
, facing the Aventine Hill. Like
Ceres, Cybele was a form of Graeco-Roman earth goddess. Unlike her, she had
mythological ties to Troy
, and thus to the Trojan prince
Aeneas
, mythological ancestor of
Rome’s founding father
and first patrician
Romulus
. The establishment of official Roman
cult to Magna Mater coincided with the start of a new saeculum (cycle of
years). It was followed by Hannibal’s defeat, the end of the Punic War and an
exceptionally good harvest. Roman victory and recovery could therefore be
credited to Magna Mater and patrician piety: so the patricians dined her and
each other at her festival banquets. In similar fashion, the plebeian nobility
underlined their claims to Ceres. Up to a point, the two cults reflected a
social and political divide, but when certain prodigies were interpreted as
evidence of Ceres’ displeasure, the senate appeased her with a new festival, the
ieiunium Cereris (“fast
of Ceres”).
In 133 BC, the plebeian noble
Tiberius Gracchus
bypassed the
Senate
and appealed directly to the popular
assembly to pass his proposed
land-reforms
. Civil unrest spilled into
violence; Gracchus and many of his supporters were murdered by their
conservative opponents. At the behest of the
Sibylline oracle
, the senate sent the
quindecimviri
to Ceres’ ancient cult centre at
Henna in Sicily
, the goddess’ supposed place of origin
and earthly home. Some kind of religious consultation or propitiation was given,
either to expiate Gracchus’ murder – as later Roman sources would claim – or to
justify it as the lawful killing of a would-be king or
demagogue
, a
homo sacer
who had offended Ceres’ laws
against tyranny.
Late Republic
The Eleusinian mysteries became increasingly popular during the late
Republic. Early Roman initiates at
Eleusis
in Greece included
Sulla
and
Cicero
; thereafter many
Emperors
were initiated, including
Hadrian
, who founded an Eleusinian cult centre
in Rome itself.
In Late Republican politics,
aristocratic traditionalists
and
popularists
used coinage to propagated their
competing claims to Ceres’ favour. A coin of
Sulla
shows Ceres on one side, on the other a
ploughman with yoked oxen: the images, accompanied by the legend “conditor”,
claim his rule (a military dictatorship) as regenerative and divinely justified.
Popularists used her name and attributes to appeal their guardianship of
plebeian interests, particularly the annona and frumentarium; and
plebeian nobles and aediles used them to point out their ancestral connections
with plebeian commoners. In the decades of Civil War that ushered in the Empire,
such images and dedications proliferate on Rome’s coinage:
Julius Caesar
, his opponents, his assassins and
his heirs alike claimed the favour and support of Ceres and her plebeian
proteges, with coin issues that celebrate Ceres,
Libertas
(liberty) and
Victoria
(victory).
Imperial era
Emperors celebrated imperial and divine partnerships in grain import
and provision. On this
Sestercius
of 66 AD,
Nero
‘s garlanded head is left.
Opposite, a standing
Annona
holds
cornucopiae
(horns of Plenty) and
enthroned Ceres holds grain-ears and torch. Between them on a
garlanded altar, a
modius
(grain measure), and in the
background, a ship’s stern.
Imperial theology conscripted Rome’s traditional cults as the divine
upholders of Imperial
Pax
(peace) and prosperity, for the benefit of
all. The emperor
Augustus
began the restoration of Ceres’
Aventine Temple; his successor
Tiberius
completed it. Of the several figures
on the Augustan
Ara Pacis
, one doubles as a portrait of the
Empress Livia
, who wears Ceres’ corona spicea.
Another has been variously identified in modern scholarship as Tellus, Venus,
Pax or Ceres, or in Spaeth’s analysis, a deliberately broad composite of them
all.
The emperor Claudius
‘ reformed the grain supply and created
its embodiment as an Imperial goddess,
Annona
, a junior partner to Ceres and the
Imperial family. The traditional, Cerean virtues of provision and nourishment
were symbolically extended to Imperial family members with coinage that showed
Claudius’ mother
Antonia
as
Augusta
with corona spicea.
The relationship between the reigning emperor, empress and Ceres was
formalised in titles such as
Augusta
mater agrorum (“The august mother of
the fields) and Ceres Augusta. On coinage, various emperors and empresses
wear her corona spicea, showing that the goddess, the emperor and his
spouse are conjointly responsible for agricultural prosperity and the
all-important provision of grain. A coin of
Nerva
(reigned AD 96–98) acknowledges Rome’s
dependence on the princeps’ gift of frumentio (corn dole) to the masses.
Under Nerva’s later dynastic successor
Antoninus Pius
, Imperial theology represents
the death and
apotheosis
of the Empress
Faustina the Elder
as Ceres’ return to Olympus
by
Jupiter’s
command. Even then, “her care for
mankind continues and the world can rejoice in the warmth of her daughter
Proserpina: in Imperial flesh, Proserpina is
Faustina the Younger
“, empress-wife of Pius’
successor
Marcus Aurelius
.
In Britain, a soldier’s inscription of the 2nd century AD attests to Ceres’
role in the popular syncretism of the times. She is “the bearer of ears of
corn”, the “Syrian Goddess”, identical with the universal heavenly Mother, the
Magna Mater and
Virgo
, virgin mother of the gods. She is peace
and virtue, and inventor of justice: she weighs “Life and Right” in her scale.
During the Late Imperial era, Ceres gradually “slips into obscurity”; the
last known official association of the Imperial family with her symbols is a
coin issue of
Septimius Severus
(AD 193–211), showing his
empress, Julia Domna
, in the corona spicea. After
the reign of
Claudius Gothicus
, no coinage shows Ceres’
image. Even so, an initiate of her mysteries is attested in the 5th century AD,
after the official abolition of all non-Christian cults.
Legacy
The word cereals
derives from Ceres, commemorating her
association with edible grains. Statues of Ceres top the domes of the
Missouri State Capitol
and the
Vermont State House
serving as a reminder of
the importance of agriculture in the states’ economies and histories. There is
also a statue of her on top of the
Chicago Board of Trade Building
, which conducts
trading in agricultural commodities.
The dwarf planet
Ceres
(discovered 1801), is named after this
goddess. And in turn, the chemical element
cerium
(discovered 1803) was named after the
dwarf planet. A poem about Ceres and humanity features in
Dmitri
‘s confession to his brother Alexei in
Dostoevsky’s
The Brothers Karamazov
, Part 1, Book 3,
Chapter 3.
Ceres appears as a character in
William Shakespeare’s
play
The Tempest
(1611).
An aria in praise of Ceres is sung in Act 4 of the opera The Trojans
by Hector Berlioz
.
The goddess Ceres is one of the three goddess offices held in the
The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry
.
The other goddesses are
Pomona
, and
Flora
.
Ceres is depicted on the
Seal of New Jersey
as a symbol of prosperity.
Ceres was depicted on several ten and twenty
Confederate States of America dollar
notes.
A manga by Yuu Watase is known as Ceres Celestial Legend
In
Greek mythology
, Demeter (ancient
Greek Δημήτηρ, Dēmētēr)
was the goddess of the harvest, who presided over
grains
, the
fertility
of the earth, the
seasons
(personified by the
Hours
), and the
harvest
. One of her surnames is Sito (σίτος:
wheat) as the giver of food or corn. Though Demeter is often described simply as
the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sanctity of
marriage
, the
sacred law
, and the cycle of
life and death
. She and her daughter
Persephone
were the central figures of the
Eleusinian Mysteries
that also predated the
Olympian pantheon.
Her
Roman
cognate is
Ceres
.
Nicopolis ad Istrum was a
Roman
and Early
Byzantine
town founded by Emperor
Trajan
around
101–106, at the junction of the Iatrus (Yantra)
and the Rositsa
rivers, in memory of his victory over the
Dacians
. Its
ruins are located at the village of
Nikyup
, 20 km north of
Veliko Tarnovo
in northern
Bulgaria
.
The town reached its apogee during the reigns of Trajan,
Hadrian
, the
Antonines
and the
Severan dynasty
.
The classical town was planned according to the orthogonal system. The
network of streets, the forum surrounded by an Ionic colonnade and many
buildings, a two-nave room later turned into a basilica and other public
buildings have been uncovered. The rich architectures and sculptures show a
similarity with those of the ancient towns in Asia Minor. Nicopolis ad Istrum
had issued coins, bearing images of its own public buildings.
In
447 AD
, the town was destroyed by
Attila’s
Huns
.
Perhaps it was already abandoned before the early 400s.
In the 6th century, it was rebuilt as a powerful fortress enclosing little more
than military buildings and churches, following a very common trend for the
cities of that century in the Danube area.The largest area of the extensive ruins (21.55 hectares) of the classical
Nicopolis was not reoccupied since the fort covered only one fourth of it (5.75
hectares), in the southeastern corner.
The town became an episcopal centre during the early Byzantine period. It was
finally destroyed by the Avar invasions at the end of the 6th century. A
Bulgarian medieval settlement arose upon its ruins later (10th-14th century).
Nicopolis ad Istrum can be said to have been the birthplace of
Germanic
literary tradition. In the 4th century, the
Gothic
bishop,
missionary and translator
Ulfilas
(Wulfila)
obtained permission from Emperor
Constantius II
to immigrate with his flock of converts to Moesia and settle
near Nicopolis ad Istrum in 347-8.
There, he invented the
Gothic alphabet
and translated the
Bible
from
Greek
to
Gothic
.
L ucius Septimius Severus (or rarely Severus I) (April 11,
145/146-February 4, 211) was a
Roman
general, and
Roman
Emperor
from April 14, 193 to 211. He was born in what is now the
Berber
part of
Rome’s historic
Africa Province
.
Septimius Severus was born and raised at
Leptis
Magna
(modern Berber
, southeast of
Carthage
,
modern Tunisia
).
Severus came from a wealthy, distinguished family of
equestrian
rank. Severus was of
Italian
Roman ancestry on his mother’s side and of
Punic
or
Libyan
-Punic[1]
ancestry on his father’s. Little is known of his father,
Publius Septimius Geta
, who held no major political status but had two
cousins who served as consuls under emperor
Antoninus Pius
. His mother, Fulvia Pia’s family moved from
Italy
to
North
Africa
and was of the
Fulvius
gens,
an ancient and politically influential clan, which was originally of
plebeian
status. His siblings were a younger
Publius Septimius Geta
and Septimia Octavilla. Severus’s maternal cousin was
Praetorian Guard
and consul
Gaius Fulvius Plautianus
.[2]
In 172, Severus was made a
Senator
by the then emperor
Marcus Aurelius
. In 187 he married secondly
Julia
Domna
. In 190 Severus became
consul
, and in
the following year received from the emperor
Commodus
(successor to Marcus Aurelius) the command of the
legions
in Pannonia
.
On the murder of
Pertinax
by
the troops in 193, they proclaimed Severus Emperor at
Carnuntum
,
whereupon he hurried to Italy. The former emperor,
Didius Julianus
, was condemned to death by the Senate and killed, and
Severus took possession of Rome without opposition.
The legions of
Syria
, however, had proclaimed
Pescennius Niger
emperor. At the same time, Severus felt it was reasonable
to offer
Clodius Albinus
, the powerful governor of Britannia who had probably
supported Didius against him, the rank of Caesar, which implied some claim to
succession. With his rearguard safe, he moved to the East and crushed Niger’s
forces at the
Battle of Issus
. The following year was devoted to suppressing Mesopotamia
and other Parthian vassals who had backed Niger. When afterwards Severus
declared openly his son
Caracalla
as successor, Albinus was hailed emperor by his troops and moved to Gallia.
Severus, after a short stay in Rome, moved northwards to meet him. On
February
19
, 197
,
in the
Battle of Lugdunum
, with an army of 100,000 men, mostly composed of
Illyrian
,
Moesian
and
Dacian
legions,
Severus defeated and killed Clodius Albinus, securing his full control over the
Empire.
Emperor
Severus was at heart a
soldier
, and
sought glory through military exploits. In 197 he waged a brief and successful
war against the
Parthian Empire
in retaliation for the support given to Pescennius Niger.
The Parthian capital
Ctesiphon
was sacked by the legions, and the northern half of
Mesopotamia
was restored to Rome.
His relations with the
Roman
Senate
were never good. He was unpopular with them from the outset, having
seized power with the help of the military, and he returned the sentiment.
Severus ordered the execution of dozens of Senators on charges of corruption and
conspiracy
against him, replacing them with his own favorites.
He also disbanded the
Praetorian Guard
and replaced it with one of his own, made up of 50,000
loyal soldiers mainly camped at
Albanum
, near Rome (also probably to grant the emperor a kind of centralized
reserve). During his reign the number of legions was also increased from 25/30
to 33. He also increased the number of auxiliary corps (numerii), many of
these troops coming from the Eastern borders. Additionally the annual wage for a
soldier was raised from 300 to 500
denarii
.
Although his actions turned Rome into a military
dictatorship
, he was popular with the citizens of Rome, having stamped out
the rampant corruption of Commodus’s reign. When he returned from his victory
over the Parthians, he erected the
Arch of Septimius Severus
in Rome.
According to Cassius Dio,[3]
however, after 197 Severus fell heavily under the influence of his Praetorian
Prefect,
Gaius Fulvius Plautianus
, who came to have almost total control of most
branches of the imperial administration. Plautianus’s daughter,
Fulvia Plautilla
, was married to Severus’s son, Caracalla. Plautianus’s
excessive power came to an end in 205, when he was denounced by the Emperor’s
dying brother and killed.[4]
The two following praefecti, including the jurist
Aemilius Papinianus
, received however even larger powers.
Campaigns in Caledonia (Scotland)
Starting from 208 Severus undertook a number of military actions in
Roman
Britain
, reconstructing
Hadrian’s Wall
and campaigning in
Scotland
.
He reached the area of the
Moray
Firth
in his last campaign in Caledonia, as was called Scotland by the
Romans.[5].
In 210 obtained a peace with the
Picts
that lasted
practically until the final withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britain
[6]
,
before falling severely ill in
Eboracum
(York).
Death
He is famously said to have given the advice to his sons: “Be harmonious,
enrich the soldiers, and scorn all other men” before he died at Eboracum on
February 4
,
211[7].
Upon his death in 211, Severus was
deified
by the Senate and succeeded by his sons,
Caracalla
and
Geta
, who were advised by his wife
Julia
Domna
.[8]
The stability Severus provided the Empire was soon gone under their reign.
Accomplishments and Record
Though his military expenditure was costly to the empire, Severus was the
strong, able ruler that Rome needed at the time. He began a tradition of
effective emperors elevated solely by the military. His policy of an expanded
and better-rewarded army was criticized by his contemporary
Dio Cassius
and
Herodianus
: in particular, they pointed out the increasing burden (in the
form of taxes and services) the civilian population had to bear to maintain the
new army.
Severus was also distinguished for his buildings. Apart from the triumphal
arch in the Roman Forum carrying his full name, he also built the
Septizodium
in Rome and enriched greatly his native city of
Leptis
Magna
(including another triumphal arch on the occasion of his visit of
203).
Severus and Christianity
Christians were
persecuted
during the reign of Septimus Severus. Severus allowed the
enforcement of policies already long-established, which meant that Roman
authorities did not intentionally seek out Christians, but when people were
accused of being Christians they could either curse
Jesus
and make an
offering to
Roman gods
, or be executed. Furthermore, wishing to strengthen the peace by
encouraging religious harmony through
syncretism
,
Severus tried to limit the spread of the two quarrelsome groups who refused to
yield to syncretism by outlawing
conversion
to Christianity or
Judaism
.
Individual officials availed themselves of the laws to proceed with rigor
against the Christians. Naturally the emperor, with his strict conception of
law, did not hinder such partial persecution, which took place in
Egypt
and the
Thebaid
, as
well as in
Africa proconsularis
and the East. Christian
martyrs
were
numerous in Alexandria
(cf.
Clement of Alexandria
, Stromata, ii. 20;
Eusebius
, Church History, V., xxvi., VI., i.). No less severe were
the persecutions in Africa, which seem to have begun in 197 or 198 (cf.
Tertullian’s
Ad martyres), and included the Christians known in the
Roman martyrology
as the martyrs of
Madaura
.
Probably in 202 or 203
Felicitas
and
Perpetua
suffered for their faith. Persecution again raged for a short time
under the proconsul
Scapula
in
211, especially in
Numidia
and
Mauritania
.
Later accounts of a Gallic
persecution, especially at
Lyon, are
legendary. In general it may thus be said that the position of the Christians
under Septimius Severus was the same as under the
Antonines
;
but the law of this Emperor at least shows clearly that the
rescript
of
Trajan
[
neededclarification] had failed to execute its purpose..
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